The Shepherd's Ewe

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It wasn't the first night such a candle was kindled, each year at dusk before the winter solstice, a lamb was chosen. The lamb was prepared, trained, and provided lodgings at the cabin on a site as prehistoric as the black mountains surrounding it.

Every year a lamb was born, and every year a lamb should die. The Shepherd's believed that it was not a ritual of sacrifice, but of hope. Each year a lamb would die; but through the actions of the lamb the Shephard’s relied on, they would embody the contents of the cabin, to prevent what essence lay within from spreading.

On one terrible occasion, a lamb had survived, they were previously known by many names, but “V” was the most recent. After surviving such a ritual, the sect of the Shephard’s banished V to a sanitarium, drugged and dazed with not a syllable to defend themselves. They feared what lingered within them, what evil may reside in the lamb. But the bell of the flame still rung aloud, calling V back to the slick black mountains among dreams of deep mercury, and to the cabin where the wax-less candle sat cold, whispering their name.

“For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” Peter 2:25

As the seasons passed by the mountains, so too, did the young lamb. It was as though the entire ward had forgotten that V was a patient and one still morning, before the winter solstice, they were released. The cold bare feet of the lamb bled and tore over kilometers of black rock between the asylum and cabin as dawn passed to dusk, but the pain and weight of the lamb’s body became lighter the closer they came. Easing V back into that familiar dream, carrying the now exhausted and expiring body to the cabin’s threshold, the door already ajar.

The lamb floated towards a decaying stool placed in front of a calcite plinth. Etched with sporadic carvings and chamfered edges, atop the plinth displayed a once human finger, encased in the center, pointing to the heavens.

As the sun had set, the cabin’s door slammed shut behind the lamb, a series of ceramics locking them in. V turned back to the plinth, where the skeletal fingers flesh animated and grew back around the bone like wicked mycelia. V looked on with ecstasy as the fingers skin wrapped the flesh as though imitating an aerial dancer’s silk, until the tip of the finger began to blacken and smolder. Soon a flame was visible, growing larger with every second that passed. The damp, wooden aroma of the cabin had been replaced by a putrid stench, nauseatingly sweet and leathery.

The lamb heard no whispers now, the great force was silent, still, however present. The flame danced until finding its poise, where it became still and bright. So bright, that while peering into the heart of the naked flame... all was forgotten. Their attention snapped away from the flame in panic. As though they had seen something they weren't meant to.

“What happened?... I’ve done something...”, they whispered to themselves while slowly scanning the cabin. The walls were animated by the flickering silhouette of the candlelight, a dance of untreated plywood unveiled twisting knots and veins of the veneer. They found themselves lost in the sharp textures while trying to recall what it was they had seen in the flame. But while searching the nooks of the cabin they found nothing, so little that an anxious shroud settled over their scalp, seeding a thought that they had done something terribly wrong or caused someone pain. The feeling felt familiar. But the harder they thought the more was forgotten, realizing they didn't recognize the very walls around them. The flame spat at them now, violent and disapproving, the dancing shadows had begun thrashing as though the walls were on fire, panicking, they looked up and felt their gaze thrown in circles as the unlined ceiling twisted and cascaded around them, rafters spinning, a deep nauseating sensation consumed their body as their thoughts melted and formed lead lumps lodged in all corners of their skull, rocking them in all directions, scared and disoriented.

BANG BANG BANG... three fleshy pounds on steel cladding stopped it all... They looked to the cabin door with swelled pupils and could make out a large halftoned figure obscured through a translucent hatch.

“Are you there?”, a woman’s voice demanded. The heel of their boots dug into the floorboards as they pushed away in fear, but the three-pronged stool screeched and called back at the visitor as they lost their balance and confirmed the woman’s query with a thud.

“Remove the seals now, he’ll be on his way” she shouted. The pounding continued, they scrambled to their feet and in a fast rhythmic sequence, they unlocked a series of ceramic locks and chains with trained care. The door creaked open, revealing a familiar small woman, peering back at them, mimicking the confusion on their face. Their psychotic mind visible within the depths of their eyes. The woman, as deeply saddened by what she saw.

“Do you have it?”, she pouted emotionless, they sat silent coughing, as smoke billowed out from the door and hugged the corrugated ridges of the cabin walls. The stout woman grabbed them by the forearm and pulled them out of the cabin and down a rocky path. Their skin hurt at the touch and as they looked down at themselves, they noticed their clothes were tattered with holes and their skin scarred and bruised. “what have I done? I’ve forgot, I’ve forgot, I’ve forgot” repeating the words with every step along the path until the word lost meaning and the deep feeling of dread seeped back into the lambs chest.

“What am I supposed to have?” they thought, confused and stumbling, “Is someone after me? Is this woman dangerous?” am I dangerous?”. The thoughts dug and stabbed at their side, as their gaunt muscles tensed and twitched, they decided it would be better to pretend nothing was wrong. Surely the small lady will explain herself and restore their memories, there had to be an explanation. However, they couldn't bring themselves to ask, for asking would reveal the blank imposter they had become mistaken with.

Down the path they continued, she didn't say a word the entire time, back turned and walking at an uncomfortably fast pace for someone so little. “Or am I just large?”, realizing they had also forgotten the concept of scale as to what was truly large or little. Their head began to pound, looking at their hand it seemed larger than usual, “or does it?”, they thought as their heart rate increased, their hands began to grow, inflating into unrecognizable appendages. The woman didn't notice, back still turned with a firm grip on their forearm. “what's happening to me!?”, they thought looking up at the sky trying to act like everything was normal. The mountains, trees and the woman holding on to them soon engulfed their vision joining their view of the sky in a fishbowl. Receding into a worm’s perspective, their hands still up in the sky like distant parade balloons. The woman turned to them,

“You haven’t said a word since I arrived. I shouldn’t be helping you like this; you know that right?”, she grimaced. Cracked lips searched for words of forgiveness, but the echoes of a wet tongues click was all that was heard. In an instant, night passed to light, the woman no longer stood before the lamb, the nauseating fishbowl and large hands were gone, the sky a painfully bright red. The lambs’ eyes could barely wince open to survey its surroundings, burnt ash seemed suspended in the air, a forest fire on the horizon. The lamb felt cold again, paralyzed now as their eyes locked with an amorphous silhouette that approached among jagged rock from the end of the path before them. Rats scampered from the rocks into the crimson light, writhing in pain. Arm outstretched; a four fingered hand gestured for the lamb to approach.

As the lamb stumbled forward gingerly in a daze of ecstacy, it was as though their surroundings fell beneath them, the vast empty and unending void of time became clear. The scene portrayed before them multiplied, staggering like dominos until only the mist and smoke emanating from the entity before them was visible; a realm where only demons and dreamers reside.

Their euphoric rapture had ended, their grimacing smile fading with the figures smoke, as a shale nude old man stood before them. He hunched with a grotesque rigid grey stomach protruding beyond his ribcage, a crook holding him up with bony slim fingers and looked upon the lamb plain eyed. More emerged, until they were surrounded by the six elders. Still paralyzed the elders grabbed and pulled at them, removing tattered clothes and breaking bones, scratching at their flesh, removing all fingers, toes and both legs below the kneecap. Laughing now, the demon’s revealed a set of gnarly curved horns of lead and mercury, inserting them under the scalp, as skin boiled and minerals of bone and metal fused. The horned effigy now stood on all fours, with hooves fashioned of bone and their purple and blackened skin on display. Ashamed, surrounded by the elders with linked arms, who skipped and frolicked, pointing and laughing in glee. V had joined the flock once more.

The following day the ewe returned to the accursed site, where the lamb had once stood. She collected the severed morsels which remained and continued back up to the cabin. Where she prepared a new plinth of calcite, etching and preparing for the following season to come.

The following year, a candle burnt bright in a window, a lamb, approaching from the hillside.